What do you mean you "can" patent "Software"?
George C Pappas
Technology Counsel/Patent Attorney; Technology Licensing & Negotiation Expert - Intellectual Property
Intellectual property and patents in particular can be highly valuable assets for innovative computer companies. However, the erroneous perception across the Greek scientific and engineering community that computer software is not patentable, has deterred thousands of inventors and researchers from securing -- and, in turn, possibly successfully exploiting -- potentially lucrative monopolies.
The EPO has granted no less than 50,000 so-called "software" patents. This number will increase exponentially should Europe ever ratify and put in force a system allowing a patent owner to obtain and enforce a European patent across the entire of Europe.
For the time being, a combination of mis-information, a lack of patent experts in Greece, and the prohibitively high cost of broad European protection in general, is often the nail that seals the coffin for Greek research departments and successful Greek software companies not pursuing patent protection in Europe (or for that matter in the US, where the costs are a fraction, and the potential market value of a software patent significantly greater from a monetization perspective).
I know some of you are thinking: "but Greek law clearly states that software is not patentable?" Indeed, it does. There is a clear and distinct legal difference, however, between software code, on the one hand, and a software invention on the other. There is more than a mere trivial distinction between copyright law -- which automatically bestows "copyright" type protections on "software code"-- and patent law which, in varying degree, entitles an inventor to be able to secure "patent" type protection on a software implementable discovery.
The decision to patent or not patent one's software implementable discovery is a highly complex business issue involving many legal but also non-legal criteria. The advice of a patent attorney with a broad international perspective and understanding of the underpinning legal, technical and business issues involving any invention is not only recommended, it is often critical.
As a patent attorney specializing in computer and electronic patents, I get the occasional call from a person with an extremely silly idea wanting a patent on a technical gadget that has been around since the discovery of the wheel; or the surprisingly all too common call from the eccentric tinkerer with an idea for a perpetual motion machine that runs forever without additional energy. You sort of get used to it and politely turn them away.
What is difficult to chew, however, are the folks that have what appears to be a wildly successful software implementable invention, with many millions of lines of code, dozens upon dozens of clever, user-friendly and non-intuitive features found on no competing device -- developed with substantial resources in terms of highly skilled technical people and time, as well as research development-related monies -- insisting "You can't patent that. It is implemented in Software! You MUST BE WRONG!"
For those who choose the advice of a trusted friend or advisor over that of a professional patent attorney, just remember that a little knowledge about something we only partially understand, can be a dangerous thing in business, as in life.
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